I'd Fly the River
by loveleee
Summary: Haymitch sighs again. "Well, no point in dragging this out. I got a phone call yesterday." He pauses. "The boy's coming back." (Prim didn't die, Katniss didn't burn, Gale didn't sin...and Peeta comes back to District Twelve three months after the end of the war. Post-Mockingjay AU. Katniss/Peeta, Katniss/Gale.)
1. katniss

**I'd Fly the River**

She's in the bath when the front door opens.

It'll be either Gale or Haymitch – more likely Gale, since it's barely noon yet. There's a soft_ thump_, the sound of a game bag being dropped on the kitchen counter. Definitely Gale.

"Catnip?"

"I'm in the bathroom," she yells back, sitting up straight as she twists her hair around her fist to wring out the bathwater.

Katniss dresses quickly in a plain shirt and pants, wrapping a towel around her head to dry her hair. Gale's washing his hands in the sink when she makes her way downstairs, the catch from this morning's hunt laid out on the kitchen island beside him. "What'd you get?"

"A few rabbits, a few squirrels. And a beaver." Her nose wrinkles – beavers smell terrible, and their meat is gamey and greasy – and Gale laughs. "I left it outside."

"Good." Rising on her tiptoes, she pulls a glass from one of the cabinets, then nudges him aside so she can fill it with water from the tap.

It still surprises her sometimes, seeing Gale in this house, though he's been living here ever since they arrived. She thought he'd refuse, try to sleep in the woods or construct himself a makeshift shelter among the ruins of the Seam. Anything not to live in a home built by Capitol hands. But he'd followed her through the front door that day, and dropped his bag besides hers in the living room, and he'd stayed.

"I saw Haymitch out there," Gale says, wiping his damp hands on his pants. "He wants you to stop by."

Katniss nearly chokes on her water. "He does? Why?"

In the nearly three months since they'd returned to District Twelve, she'd been inside Haymitch's house precisely twice – and never because she'd been invited. She'd barged in there on occasion in a panic, because she hadn't seen or heard from him in so long, she worried he'd finally drunk himself to death.

"I don't know." Gale shrugs. "Didn't ask."

Her face settles into a frown, and she crosses her arms over her chest, surveying the array of dead animals on the counter. "Well, I'd better bring him one of these," she mutters. "He's probably living on nothing but white liquor."

Gale watches in silence as she selects the biggest rabbit, and throws it back into the game bag. "He's not your responsibility, you know."

Her shoulders tense, but she ignores Gale's comment. She doesn't want to get into it again. He doesn't understand why she leaves a catch from every hunt on Haymitch's front porch, or why she invites him for dinner some days, even knowing that he'll show up so drunk he falls asleep at the table before he can finish his meal.

He doesn't understand that Haymitch is family now, just as much as Gale is. She may not see him most days – may not even _like _him most days – but she has a connection, a bond, with the older man, and she'd die before she broke it off herself.

The walk to Haymitch's house is brief, so she doesn't bother lacing up her boots for the short trip, instead tucking the laces in around her calves. It's early spring, and the ground is still damp from last night's rain. Her father's hunting jacket hangs warm and familiar over her shoulders as she walks down the gravel road.

There's no answer at Haymitch's door, not after one, two, three knocks. She looks back to her house, where she knows Gale is beginning to dress the game, more likely than not annoyed that the best rabbit will end up on Haymitch's dinner table instead of theirs. If she goes back now, Gale wins. So she jiggles the doorknob, only a little surprised when the door opens easily.

Haymitch is asleep on the couch, an empty bottle tipped over on the ground beside him. She rolls it away with the toe of her boot, shaking her head. "Haymitch," she says loudly.

He must have only been asleep for a few minutes, because for once, it's enough to wake him. He blinks up at her blearily, recognition dawning slowly in his eyes. "Oh. It's you."

"Yeah, it's me." When he says nothing, she adds, "Gale said you wanted to see me."

Haymitch heaves himself up in a sitting position, brushing his long, messy hair away form his eyes. They regard one another in silence for a moment. "How _are _things going with you and that one?"

_That one, _she thinks, and rolls her eyes. There is no love lost between Gale and Haymitch, for reasons she hasn't even begun to try to understand – something that happened in Thirteen while she was still hiding in closets and sleeping all day, presumably.

"Fine," she says.

Haymitch nods slowly. She can practically see his mind wandering already. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

He shakes his head slightly, grunting as he stands up off the sofa. "Patience," he says. She watches in near disbelief as he opens the fridge and pulls out _another _bottle of white liquor.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" She snatches the bottle from his fingertips before he can protest. "It's barely noon, Haymitch."

He holds up his hands defensively. "Hey, that one was for _you_, Sweetheart."

She snorts, dropping the bottle on the kitchen island. "What are you talking about?"

Haymitch sighs, resting his elbows on the countertop as he leans in towards her. For once, his eyes actually look clear –and very serious. "Have you heard from anyone in the Capitol lately?" he asks.

The question catches her off-guard. The Capitol? Who would she hear from in the Capitol? The whole point of coming back to Twelve was to duck out of the spotlight, fly under the radar, cut her ties with all that and live as close to a "normal" life as she possibly could. She hadn't heard a peep from anyone back there – Plutarch Heavensbee, Effie Trinket, President Coin herself – and she wasn't unhappy about it.

"No," she says.

"That's what I thought." Haymitch sighs again. "Well, no point in dragging this out. _I _got a phone call yesterday." He pauses. "The boy's coming back."

* * *

><p><em>The war ended in flames, just as it began.<em>

_Flames from bombs, specifically. Bombs that fell from one of the Capitol's hovercrafts, landing in a crowd of their own children, corralled together as human shields to guard President Snow's mansion. Silver parachutes, just like the ones for tributes in the Games. But those gifts opened up into death, not life. And after the medics had rushed in to treat the survivors, they opened up again._

_It was pure luck that Prim wasn't among them when the bomb went off. She was in the Capitol, as part of the rebels' medical team, granted permission to join the front lines despite her young age. By some miracle her transport was snagged in a traffic delay, and they were still a mile off when it happened._

_Katniss was lucky, too, that she wasn't close enough to get hit by the shrapnel or the burst of fire. But she saw it happen. She saw the blood and fire and ash, and she heard the screams._

_Getting inside the mansion became impossible after that, and with people screaming and running and crying around her, her brain essentially shut down from the stress. She staggered through the streets, a living zombie, until Peeta managed to find her in the crowd. They hunkered down beneath the stoop of a rowhouse on a side street somewhere, shivering beneath layers of coats and scarves until it seemed safe enough to venture out._

_By nightfall President Snow was captured and locked up as a prisoner in his own home. Following a quick trial – little more than a formality – Katniss was asked to execute him with her bow and arrow. She did so, gladly. Coin stepped in as leader of the new Panem. And the war tribunals began._

_It all happened so quickly, so over her head, that Katniss never had much of a chance to step away and think about how she felt about it all. The only thing that gave her pause in the midst of change and confusion happened the day before the execution._

_Coin gathered the remaining Victors together – now only seven – the day before Snow's execution. She proposed a compromise: to balance the districts' need for vengeance, and the country's need to stem the loss of life that threatened its very existence. A Hunger Games, with tributes reaped from the children of Capitol war criminals. It had to be sanctioned by a majority of Victors – the ones who suffered the greatest personal loss at the hands of the Capitol._

_If Coin was expecting an eager response, she must have been sorely disappointed. Only Johanna and Enobaria voted in favor. Peeta spoke passionately about the moral implications of a final Games. Beetee, analytical as ever, pointed out the threat it posed to the unity of a new Panem. Annie spoke softly and said it wasn't what Finnick would have wanted._

_Though she'd never admit it aloud, Katniss considered voting yes. The blood of twenty-three children couldn't even begin to atone for the hundreds lost over the years – yet it was something._

_But when it came to her turn – when she saw the way Peeta was looking at her – she couldn't do it. She'd never been as good as the person he imagined her to be. But she could try. She owed it to him to try._

_Coin's face was immovable as her steel-grey hair when the vote was finished. But Katniss never quite shook the feeling that it wasn't the outcome she'd been hoping for._

_So Katniss wasn't altogether surprised when Haymitch pulled her aside in the moments after she shot the arrow that ended Coriolanus Snow's life. Her hands, so steady as she's taken aim and released the arrow, wouldn't stop shaking. She followed Haymitch obediently, hoping they'd end up somewhere she could close her eyes and sleep._

_Instead he led her to a small, empty sitting room in the east wing of the President's mansion, shut the door, turned to her and said, "Sweetheart, we've got to get you out of here."_

_She blinked. "What?"_

_"Coin's in a pretty good spot right now," he said, his voice low and rushed. "So maybe she's feeling so confident that she doesn't care about the Mockingjay anymore. There's no viable threat to her power at the moment, so you aren't one, either." Haymitch paused. "That's the best case scenario."_

_"And the worst?"_

_"She's so cocky she thinks she can have you killed without repercussion."_

_The realization sank like a lead weight in her stomach. "You really think she'd do that?" she said. "I shot Snow, didn't I? What else does she want from me?"_

_"You didn't exactly prove your loyalty when you voted against her Games."_

_Katniss stared him down. "So you think I should have voted yes?" she demanded. "Let all those kids die to save my own skin?"_

_"I didn't say that." Haymitch shook his head slightly. "You'll remember I didn't vote yes, either."_

_He hadn't – even though his vote was last, and wouldn't have changed the outcome anyway._

_"So what do I do?" she whispered._

_"You keep your head down, and you go back to Twelve like a good little Mockingjay. You disappear." Haymitch narrowed his eyes. "Think you can handle that?"_

_Did he really need to ask? To disappear – to go home – was all she'd ever wanted, since the moment Prim's name left Effie Trinket's lips at the Reaping._

_"When do we leave?"_

* * *

><p>She blinks at Haymitch slowly, letting the words sink in. <em>The boy is coming back.<em>

_Peeta._

"Why?" she finally says. "His family's dead."

Harsh words, but true. The bakery where he grew up is nothing but a charred shell of the home it once was. His parents' and his brothers' bodies were found among the rubble during the early days of cleanup, and now they're buried in the meadow out by the Seam, along with hundreds – maybe thousands – of others who perished in the bombing. There's nothing left here for Peeta, except maybe his house in the Victors' Village. But he never really managed to make that cold, empty place a home.

Once she might have thought, _I'm here. _That Peeta could return home to her. She might have wanted it, even. But all that feels like someone else's life now – a story that she read, or a dream.

"Where else would he go?" Haymitch says.

"I don't know." She ducks her head, trailing a fingertip along a crack in the countertop. "Some other district. Make a new start."

Haymitch shrugs, scratching at the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin. "Well, maybe he will. Maybe he just needs to take a look at what's left, and then he'll move on."

She isn't sure if he means what's left of Twelve, or something else, but she nods. "Well, thanks for warning me," she mutters.

"My pleasure." He nods towards the bottle of liquor she'd grabbed from him. "You rethinking that drink?"

She almost considers it, but she remembers the awful burn of the alcohol in her throat, back when she'd learned about the Quarter Quell, and how she'd wanted to die the next morning. "When?" she says. "I mean, when's he getting here?"

"Next supply train," Haymitch says. "Few days."

She nods again. "Okay. Thanks."

She leaves the bottle of liquor where it is and heads for the door. His voice behind her makes her pause, her hand on the doorknob. "Katniss. I think you know why he's coming back." Haymitch clears his throat. "Don't waste it."

* * *

><p>As she expected, Gale is elbow-deep in rabbit guts when she steps back inside the house. "What'd he want?" he asks without looking up.<p>

Katniss doesn't answer immediately, taking her time to think it over as she removes her jacket and boots by the door. She doesn't want to tell him about Peeta – at least, not right away. Gale will be suspicious, and he'll have questions, and she doesn't want to deal with that right now. She wants more time to mull it over. To consider what Peeta coming home means to her.

But if she doesn't tell him now, he'll wonder why, and this rift that's grown between them could deepen into a chasm. Something they couldn't make it across, no matter how badly they both wish things could go back to the way they were.

"Peeta's coming back to Twelve," she says, avoiding the way his gaze suddenly jumps to her face. "In two days, I think."

"Is he safe?" Gale demands immediately. She knows he doesn't mean _is Peeta safe from harm_; he means _is Peeta safe to be around. _

"I don't know."

"Well, what's he coming back for?"

"I don't know," she repeats, gritting her teeth. But Haymitch was right. She knows. She's always known. And it shouldn't be a surprise, that this is where it was all headed: Gale and Peeta and Katniss, questions she's not ready to answer, decisions she's not ready to make.

"What _do _you know?"

"That he's coming back here, and he's coming on the supply train," she snaps. "That's all Haymitch told me. If you've got more questions, feel free to ask him."

Gale drops the knife onto the counter with a clatter. "Hey. I'm just looking out for you."

Katniss sighs, and she tries to relax her shoulders, to let the fight drain out of her the way she knows it should. She doesn't understand why it's like this with Gale now; why every conversation deeper than _what did you catch _and _what should we eat _is like entering combat. "I know," she says, taking a deep, calming breath. "I appreciate that. But I'm…"

She isn't sure what she wants to say. _I'm scared? I'm uncertain? I'm excited? _She's all of those things, some more than others. Certainly Gale would like to hear some of them more than others.

"I just need to think. Okay?"

"Okay," Gale agrees, turning his attention back to the game, though he sounds irritated. "Can you help me with these squirrels?"

"Sure," she says, relieved to have something to occupy her hands.

* * *

><p><strong>I really should be working on my other two incomplete stories, but I couldn't get this concept out of my head, so here it is. I don't anticipate this being a particularly long story. POV will shift between Katniss, Gale &amp; Peeta.<strong>

**There will be more clarity on where Prim & Mrs. Everdeen are, the nature of Katniss & Gale's relationship, and other things in the chapters to come.**

**I'd love to know what you think! :)**


	2. gale

Gale can't sleep that night.

He lays in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling. Occasionally he'll hear a choked cry or a sob, audible through the vent that connects his room to the one where Katniss sleeps upstairs. The nightmares come to her every night, something he hadn't known until they started living together. His feet twitch, like they know he should be running up the steps, but he only rolls onto his side, burying his face in the pillow.

He'd done it once, that first week when they were back. He'd gone to her, wrapped his arms around her, pulled her back into consciousness. She had clung to him at first, fingers digging deep into the skin of his back, and he'd thought, _I will never leave you._

But when he ran his palm over her hair and murmured "Alright, Catnip?", and she pulled back far enough to see him, she'd looked…surprised. Her arms fell away. And he realized that he wasn't whom she'd expected, even though he was just a quick sprint away, in the room by the bottom of the stairs. Even though that other boy was miles, years and worlds away.

So he doesn't try to comfort her anymore; not for the nightmares, at least.

Restless, he climbs out of bed and makes his way into the kitchen. There's a container of stew left over from their dinner, and he pulls it out of the refrigerator, grabbing a spoon before he sits at the kitchen table to eat it cold.

It's still strange, eating food like this whenever he wants it, without having to worry about whether there will be enough to share among five bellies. He thinks of his family, still back in Thirteen, where there is plenty of food and water and shelter. And a school. Other children to play with. Doctors, in case anyone falls ill.

Gale understands why his family isn't here in Twelve with him, but it doesn't stop the aching loneliness from flaring up in his chest again. He knows that Katniss feels the same way, with her family living in District Four, where her mother is helping to start a new hospital and Prim can get an actual medical education.

He thought at first that this was why they needed each other: to fill the holes in each other's hearts. To be their _own_ family. And when he kissed her, back in those early days, and she clutched at his shirt and opened her mouth beneath his, he thought that was exactly what they were doing.

But now? Now there's a distance creeping between them, and he can't quite close the gap. It's like a door shutting between them again and again, the way the one at the Justice Building did the day she volunteered, cutting off his love before she even realizes it's there.

Gale drops his spoon into the empty bowl, the clatter echoing in the still, deep silence of night.

In a day and a half, Peeta will be here. Smiling. Joking. Baking bread. Staring at Katniss when she isn't looking. Flirting with her.

Trying to break her neck.

He doesn't know what to expect, truthfully. The baker boy had seemed…okay, the last time Gale saw him. Shaken, after seeing a man die with an arrow through his chest – but most people were shaken that day, Gale included. It wasn't the same as an animal, despite what he'd told Katniss years ago in the Justice Building.

Still – he doesn't trust Peeta, or the cruel, twisted thing that lives inside him now. No matter how good Peeta may get at suppressing it, hiding it – and Gale is sure that Peeta _will _become good at it – he'll never be able to kill it.

Gale knows because it's in him, too. Has been ever since the bombing of Twelve, and the burning desire for rebellion – for freedom, for justice – transformed into something new. Something just as heated, but bitter, too.

It's much easier to hide it now that they've won. He remembers when Katniss had told him about Coin's proposal to hold a final Hunger Games. He'd kept his face neutral, and held back his surprise when she told him she'd voted against it.

"Would've been pointless," he'd agreed.

"But even if it had a point, it would've been wrong." She'd stared at him for a moment. "Wouldn't it?"

That moment – sitting beside her on the hovercraft, her face scrubbed of makeup, looking like _Katniss_ again – it was the first time he wondered if he'd made the right choice, coming back to Twelve with her. And it wasn't the last.

* * *

><p><em>As one of the survivors of the Star Squad, Gale was onstage for the execution. Katniss disappeared almost as soon as it was over, trailing after Haymitch into the mansion. He watched, wanting to follow, knowing somehow that he shouldn't.<em>

_He caught Peeta's eye from a few feet away, and the blond boy nodded stiffly, but neither made a move to meet. There wasn't much to say. They'd both survived, improbably enough, and whatever lives they would manage to cobble together in the years to come were just a bonus, whether they were with Katniss or not._

_He didn't see her again until that evening, when she stormed down the hallway of the former hotel where they'd all been set up for the duration of Snow's trial. She didn't even notice him until he stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. "Whoa. Where you goin', Catnip?"_

_Katniss jerked away, startled, her shoulders only relaxing slightly as she realized it was Gale. She looked like she'd been crying. After a pause, she said, "District Twelve."_

_Gale searched her expression for any hint of sarcasm, and found none, though admittedly she wasn't as easy to read these days. "Twelve," he repeated. "When?"_

_She took a deep breath. "Tomorrow morning. Eight thirty."_

_He hesitated before voicing his next question aloud. "Who?"_

_Her eyes darted away from his face. "Me and Haymitch." A pause. "You, if you want."_

_He waited for the last name, but she only shifted on her feet, balling her hands up in her sleeves. "Alright then," he said. "Eight thirty."_

_It took him less than ten minutes to pack his bag. He was downstairs waiting for her by eight the next morning. She showed up fifteen minutes late, Haymitch in tow, the older man barely coherent and still dressed in his sleep clothes. _

"_Let's go," she said, and he knew then: she'd made her choice, and it was him._

_Even so, he didn't really believe that Peeta wouldn't show up, a breathless apology for his tardiness on his lips, until he felt the engine rumble to life beneath his feet, and the odd, weightless feeling of taking flight._

_The hovercraft dropped them off in the meadow by the Seam, the only place big enough for a landing that wasn't already cluttered with rubble and bones. Nothing had changed since the last time they were here, filming a propo. Burnt out shells of houses, lawns of ash and char. Yet Gale found his feet trying to carry him back to his old home, the path so familiar it was engrained in him like a scar._

"_Gale." Katniss' sharp voice pulled him back as he began to drift down the dirt road towards the lot where his house had stood. "Where are you going?"_

_He shook his head. "I don't know." There was no home waiting for him at the end of this road. He'd have to remember that._

_Katniss was his home now. So he followed her there, to the house she'd won, to begin the life that she – they – had earned._

_It wasn't easy._

_The nightmares, for starters. Every night he heard the whimpers, the crying, the incoherent pleas. It was why they couldn't sleep together, she said. "I'll just keep you up all night." She kept him up all night, anyway, but he didn't tell her that._

_They took to hunting on different schedules. Katniss rose before sunrise most days, and was back in time to eat a quiet breakfast just as he was waking up. But with no more school, no more mines, no more training, no more war, Gale relished the freedom to sleep as late as he wanted. He'd head for the forest midday, thinking of Katniss as she undressed for a bath, of the way her skin would look dewy and damp with sweat._

_It was maddening, the thought of her naked and wet in their home, when they'd only ever kissed. He didn't push her for more, but he didn't hide his desire, either. Despite all the groping and kissing that she and Peeta had done onscreen, he could tell she was still inexperienced; he couldn't help the sheer relief he felt the first time she realized he had an erection. They'd been kissing in the kitchen, and he'd pushed her back up against the counter, and her eyes had sprung open when he pushed his hips into hers. "Oh," she'd said, and skittered away, up the stairs like a wild animal disappearing into the canopy._

_She only mentioned Peeta once. Their second day back, Gale had found a winter hat on a shelf as he cleaned out the coat closet next to his bedroom. It had ear flaps and fur lining, clearly designed for a male. "You want to hang onto this?" he asked, handing her the hat._

_Katniss turned it over in her hands for a long moment. "No," she said finally, thrusting it back into his hands. "He's not coming back."_

* * *

><p>Gale barely sees Katniss the next day. He gets it; she needs to "think." But she's seated at the kitchen table for breakfast on Wednesday morning when he rouses himself from sleep, a bowl of oatmeal in front of her, and more waiting for him on the stove.<p>

"Thanks," he says, and she nods.

They eat mostly in silence, until he says, "What time does the train get in?"

Katniss stops the swirling motion she's been making with her spoon for the last five minutes. "Should be around two," she shrugs.

Gale chews his breakfast slowly. "Are you going to go?" _Are you meeting him_, is what he means, but he can't bring himself to say it.

Her forehead creases slightly as she looks at him. "Well, we have to go pick up our food."

Somehow that hadn't occurred to him, although they do it every other week when the train comes, bearing the grains and fruit and vegetables that won't yet grow in Twelve's ashy, barren soil. "Right," he says.

She rises from her seat and crosses the kitchen to wash her bowl in the sink. After years of watching her, he knows how her body moves, and there is something careful in her gestures this morning. Like she doesn't want to frighten something away. He doesn't understand; there's no one here but him.

"You want to go hunting today?" he asks, knowing it's a long shot.

He's surprised when she looks up at him and says, simply, "Yes."

* * *

><p>There's a brisk chill in the late morning air – winter's last gasp, most likely – and it feels good against his face as they duck under branches and clamber over the damp forest floor, their breaths puffing out in little white clouds as they wait for prey to cross their path. It's a good hunt, like the ones they used to have back before Prim was reaped. They move together through the forest like one being, bodies in sync, and he feels <em>alive <em>again for the first time in months.

There's a rustling in the bushes up ahead, and they stop. Gale's reminded irresistibly of a day just like this one, when he was sixteen and she fourteen, long before he realized that he wanted to be more than Katniss Everdeen's hunting partner. "Hey," he says. "Remember that one time when –"

"Shh." She points, and he looks – there is a buck barely fifty feet ahead of them, its long, elegant neck extended to the ground where it grazes.

He can't take his eyes off her as she slowly nocks an arrow, her lips pursing the moment before she lets it fly. It pierces the buck right behind the eye. A perfect shot.

She scrambles to her feet in excitement, and he swallows her shout of glee as he pulls her close and kisses her, hard on the mouth.

For a brief, wonderful moment, her mouth moves back against his, but then her hands are pushing at his chest, pushing him away. "What are you…you shouldn't do that," she says, stumbling over the words.

His gut sinks. "Why?" he says. "Because he's here?"

"Because we're in the woods, and it's a distraction. It's dangerous." Her eyes flit away and then she turns, picking her way over the rocks towards the felled deer, and he's so used to it by now that it almost doesn't hurt.

"Bullshit," he mutters under his breath.

Katniss stops. "What?"

"I said it's bullshit," he says louder, already hating the bitter edge to his tone, but powerless to stop it.

"What's bullshit?"

"That you're still pining over him," he says, "when you chose _me._"

Katniss stares back at him, her chin trembling, and he knows he should back down. Apologize. But that thing is inside of him still, the bad thing, and he won't let her win. He can't.

She won't deny it, anyway. "I didn't ask him to come back," she whispers.

"You didn't ask me, either," he shoots back.

Her mouth moves wordlessly for a moment. "What do you want me to say?" she demands. "You're here. You know – you know how I feel about you."

Gale shakes his head in disbelief. "Do you know how many times I've heard you say that? It's _never _been true. I've never had a fucking _clue_." At her stricken look, he sighs. "Do you even want me here, Katniss? Really?"

"Right now? No." She shoves past him, their bows knocking against one another loudly as she passes.

"Where are you going?" he calls after her. "Catnip, come on." No answer. "It's a deer, Katniss."

"Carry it yourself," her voice just barely reaches him, already out of sight.

* * *

><p>It takes him nearly two hours to drag the carcass back to the Victor's Village. When he finally walks through the doorway, half-collapsing into a chair, she's not home.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>So now you've got some of Gale's perspective, and hopefully a better idea of what's going on between them. Of course, Gale has no idea what happened between Katniss &amp; Peeta when they were still in the Capitol, so...it's a good thing Peeta's POV is coming up next. ;)<strong>

**Thank you so much to everyone who has left comments - I truly appreciate it!**


	3. peeta

Fifteen minutes. Thirty. Forty-five. Peeta drops his head against the back of his seat, straining to hear the muffled voices outside. He'll be stuck on this train for days, probably, waiting out the entire population of District Twelve as they retrieve their provision boxes.

Not that it's much of a population.

The conductor enters his compartment at one hour on the dot. "You getting off here or what?" he asks gruffly. "I'm turning back around in five minutes."

The man's clearly not from the Capitol: day-old stubble, work boots, a hole at the knee of his jeans. Peeta would wonder how he got an interdistrict job like this one, if his only cargo wasn't vegetables for the few dozen people crazy enough to come back to a nonexistent district, and a boy with a broken brain.

"Yeah," he says, pulling himself out of his seat. He glances out the window one more time, satisfied to see that the station is empty. He grabs his knapsack from the seat beside him and walks haltingly down the aisle, his legs stiff from sitting so long.

The conductor follows him down onto the platform. "There's still a box here," the man says. "And I gotta get going."

Peeta just stares at him, pretty sure he knows what the man isn't asking. Pretty sure that he'll do it, anyway. He sighs.

"What's the name?" Odds are he won't even recognize it; nearly everyone he'd known in Twelve was dead, after all.

The man bends down to check. "Says…Everdeen."

Peeta stops in his tracks, and gives the man a look. If he knows who Peeta is – and how could he not? – he does a damn good job of hiding it. "Seriously?"

The conductor just shrugs.

* * *

><p>The district – what's left of it – doesn't look as bad as he'd expected.<p>

In the dark room, they'd shown him videos. Live footage, they said. People burning in the streets. Families trapped beneath fallen beams, dying slowly in their own homes, crying out for help that never came. The entire town square was red, all red, consumed by fire and blood.

_Because of Katniss,_ they said.

But there is nothing red in District Twelve now, at least not along the long, circuitous path he's weaving in order to avoid walking past the center of town. Just brown dirt, black houses, blue sky. A few patches of green grass, here and there. No red. Nothing that reminds him of flames.

Nonetheless, when he reaches the edge of Victor's Village, he stops just outside the gate, breathing in deeply.

He'll have to see her eventually. He _wants _to see her. A small, hesitant part of him had even entertained the possibility that she'd be there at the station when his train pulled in. Hair pulled back in a braid, eyes clear but guarded, like nothing had changed.

But she wasn't there – she hadn't even come to collect her provisions. _Katniss Everdeen _hadn't come for _food_.

Peeta continues down the gravel road.

All the houses here, at least, look the same. Victor's Village had been spared the bombs. It's a small comfort, knowing that there's a baseline for his memory here, a foundation to build his routines upon. Routines, Dr. Aurelius had stressed, were key.

Peeta passes Haymitch's house first, to his left; the windows are all shuttered, which is no surprise. Haymitch will be the easiest to face. For a split second he considers just dropping the box off on Haymitch's porch, and letting them all figure it out while he squirrels away in his own house.

But he can't. That's not who he was, and it's not who he will be.

His pulse races as he climbs the steps to Katniss' front door, chanting _right, left, right _in his head, the way he did when he first learned to climb the stairs with his prosthetic. That was three years ago…no, just less than two. He still struggles with timelines.

He does remember the last time he was here, just a few days before the reaping for the Quarter Quell. His fake foot had caught on a rock as they were outside running drills, and he'd pitched forward onto the ground, skinning his good knee. Katniss had dragged him inside against his protests.

"Mother?" she'd called, pausing a moment before she muttered, "Must be out." Peeta had slumped into a chair and watched as she grabbed a little bottle and some gauze from a cabinet overhead.

His breath had caught in his throat when she knelt before him, dabbing at the wound. He'd hissed a moment later, when she used alcohol to clean it, and half-laughed, "What do you think, doc, am I going to lose the other one?"

Katniss had frozen for a second, keeping her eyes trained on his knee. "That's not funny," she'd said. They were silent until she finished bandaging the cut and he thanked her.

Those details – the words, the looks, the touches – they're easy to remember. It's the feelings behind them that are hard.

He stands before the door for a minute or two, breathing deeply, _in and out_, the way Dr. Aurelius taught him. He shuts his eyes for a moment, letting his mind wander, and he's relieved to find that it's just nerves, and not fear or anger or aggression, making his heart pound so painfully in his chest.

Shifting the weight of the box onto one arm, he knocks. He can just barely make out the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, then the soft creak of footsteps. The door opens. It's not Katniss.

It's Gale Hawthorne.

* * *

><p><em>Katniss was nearly catatonic when they finally found safe shelter after the bombing, but it was Peeta who ended up in the hospital.<em>

"_Your records were mixed up in Thirteen," the doctor said, avoiding his eyes. "It turns out you weren't cleared for combat, after all."_

_Peeta said nothing. They could lie to him all they wanted, and he could argue, and none of it would make a difference. There was no one with a medical record like Peeta Mellark's in District Thirteen. No possible chance of a mix-up. They all knew that. And he was so tired…_

_It was easier to just play along._

_The trial of Coriolanus Snow lasted only three days. Peeta watched it from the television in the corner of his room, drifting in and out of sleep, not really caring about any of the particulars. Snow would soon die. That was obvious. _

_A man named Dr. Aurelius showed up sometimes, and would watch the trial with him from a chair beside the bed. "Shouldn't you be talking to me, or something?" Peeta asked him at one point. "How is this supposed to 'fix' me?"_

_Aurelius peered at him over his wire-framed glasses. "Stick to your routine," he said simply. "Routines are good."_

_Haymitch came to visit a few days before the execution. "They want you there," he told Peeta, taking a roll of bread from Peeta's dinner tray. Peeta let him. It wasn't very good, anyway._

_Peeta snorted. "So they've decided I'm sane enough to watch a live execution?"_

_Haymitch smirked, leaning back in his chair. "They're still looking for a good show." He chewed the bread slowly. "Solidarity. From the Victors."_

"_Fine." Peeta shrugged. "I don't care. I'll do it."_

_Haymitch laughed, the first real laugh Peeta had heard from anyone in as long as he could remember. "I wasn't asking, boy," he said._

_The next day, the remaining Victors were gathered by Coin. To vote on _another _Hunger Games…the very thing they fought to destroy. It was sick. Peeta watched Katniss from across the room and for a moment it was like he could read her mind: she almost said yes. _

_The execution itself felt like a fever dream. A prep team came to bathe and dress him; it wasn't _his_ prep team, but he saw them there anyway, Lydia's long fingernails and Domitian's flowing golden hair and Hilaria's jewel-encrusted cheekbones. He saw their bodies, falling to the stage floor the night they were killed right in front of him._

_By the time he was propped up on the stage with the rest of them – Victors, soldiers, victims – he was a quivering mess. Only on the inside, though. If there was one thing the Capitol couldn't entirely strip away from him, it was his gift for charades._

_So Katniss shot Snow. Katniss shot a Capitol woman, right in her living room. Katniss shot Peeta – but no, that wasn't right, he felt the arrow pierce him but there was no blood – _

_It didn't make sense. None of it made sense._

_And it made even less sense when she came to see him that night._

_He didn't hear her enter the room, so when she cleared her throat and said "Hi," right beside him, he nearly jumped out of his skin. _

_Peeta fought to keep his breathing steady; that was the trick, Aurelius had said, just keep breathing. Breathing and routines. "What are you doing here?"_

_Katniss looked uncertain. "I haven't seen you," she said._

"_I've been here the whole time," he said. Up close he saw that she was still tired, but in much better shape than the last time he'd seen her. _

Of course she looks healthy_. _She feeds off of death. _The thought crept up his spine like a spider, and he shuddered, trying to shake it off._

"_I'm sorry," she said, her voice soft. "I should have come sooner. But there were all these meetings, and all these people, and then the trial…it's been so confusing."_

"_It's okay," he said, and he almost meant it. At the very least, the urge to physically hurt her was gone. There had even been a few times these past several weeks – usually somewhere right between sleep and waking – when Peeta felt a surge of affection for the slim, dark-haired girl before him. _

_But just as often, he found himself turning a memory over and over in his head, coming up short of anything to justify the good feelings. He had loved her – yes, he remembered that now. He just couldn't remember _why_. At this point, he wasn't even sure if he liked her._

"_It's not, but…" Something in her eyes flickered to life then, and she laid her hand over his on the bedsheets. "Peeta, we can go home now. Haymitch arranged a hovercraft. Tomorrow."_

"_Home?" _

_Katniss nodded. "Home, to Twelve."_

_Home. Twelve. Where his family lived._

_Where his family had died._

_Where his family was murdered, by Katniss Everdeen._

_The familiar dread rolled through him as he felt his pulse pick up. An attack was rising up from inside him, clawing its way up through his chest. He pulled his hand away and twisted it together with his other hand in his lap. _

"_No."_

_Katniss frowned. "No?" she repeated. _

"_I don't…I can't." He flexed his wrists instinctively, expecting the sharp, painful dig of the metal cuffs in his wounds, but there was nothing there. Just air. The realization sent his pulse racing even faster. There was nothing here to ground him, to hold him back._

"_But…I don't understand."_

_Peeta kept his eyes trained on the floor, focused on a single blue tile, like Dr. Aurelius had suggested he do when he felt the panic swelling in his breast. Focus. Breathing. Routines. He wished she'd go away; she wasn't just a distraction, but a trigger this time, too. _

"_I'm not going," he said shortly. _

"_Peeta." She touched his shoulder after a pause. "I…I need you there."_

_He finally looked at her, and whatever it was that she saw in his eyes made her shrink away. "You _need _me?" he demanded. "Is that what you tell all the boys before you leave them for dead?"_

_Her eyes widened. "What?"_

"_Or maybe you just need an errand boy," he continued. "Is that it? You want me to hang around and tell you how pretty_ _you are?" Peeta snorted. "It's not my problem if you hate yourself, Katniss."_

_He heard her take in a sharp breath. "You're a murderer," he said plainly. "_I'm _a murderer. And you thought after all that we could make nice and play house." He laughed. "Don't be an idiot."_

You're almost there_, the little voice whispered, _don't stop now. _"You know, I've spent so much time trying to remember why I loved you. And I finally realized…I didn't. Not the real you." He paused. "I gave up everything for you," he said, his voice growing quieter. "A girl who doesn't even exist."_

* * *

><p>Gale stares at him in surprise. Peeta wonders if Haymitch had even bothered to tell anyone he was coming. If Katniss even knows.<p>

"No one came to pick this up," he says, holding out the box.

Gale blinks. "Oh." He accepts the box, but doesn't move from the doorway. "Thanks."

Peeta rubs his palm against his chin, glancing back at the empty road behind him. "Sure." He feels stupid, embarrassed by the sinking feeling in his stomach, and the flush he can feel blooming on his cheeks. Of course. _Of course. _

Hadn't he always known it would end up this way? Since the moment she'd pressed her lips against his in that cave…deep down, he'd known. He'd just fooled himself into forgetting it, over and over and over again.

"You look well," Gale says.

Peeta tries not to roll his eyes at the compliment. Maybe he looks better than he did months ago, when he was still half-crazed, tromping through sewers with the rest of the Star Squad, wishing someone would just put him out of his misery. But he knows that compared to the healthy, strapping seventeen-year-old he's seen in the videos of himself pre-Quell, _haggard _is a better descriptor. He hasn't slept a full night in months.

"Yeah, you too," he says. He shivers slightly as the breeze picks up, and Gale clears his throat, taking a step back.

"Do you…want to come in?"

He doesn't, he doesn't at all. Peeta shakes his head. "No, I've gotta…" He trails off. There is nothing he has to do, other than get away from here. "I'll see you around, I guess."

He's down the steps before Gale can open his mouth to reply. His knee aches in protest as he walks briskly across the way to his own house. A shock of panic runs through him when he realizes he doesn't have a key for the door, but when his fingers close numbly around the doorknob, it opens.

Peeta presses his back against the door once it's closed behind him, ignoring how uncomfortably his knapsack digs into his spine. He looks around.

He'd asked his brothers to clear it out after he left for the Quell, and told them to take whatever they wanted. But it looks untouched. They must have been waiting until they _knew, _one hundred percent, he wasn't coming home to do it. And then…

He doesn't want to think about it.

He steps into the foyer slowly. Dust filters through the air, visible in a few rays of sunlight peeking through the windows. This was his home once. This is his home now.

He's home.

* * *

><p><strong>I was so excited to write Peeta's chapter. Oh Peeta. 3<strong>

**Thank you so much for the kind reviews! :) I'd love to know your thoughts, now that you've had a glimpse into where Peeta's at, at this point in the story.**


	4. katniss ii

_When you chose me. _

Katniss plucks an acorn from the branch over her head, rolling the nut between her fingers before letting it fall to the forest floor. She can't stop hearing Gale's words, over and over again, as though a flock of jabberjays has taken up residence in her head. _You chose me._

Is that what he thinks?

The obvious answer: yes. Because she had, in a way. She could have stayed in the Capitol with Peeta. She could have swallowed her pride, pushed past the rejection, and helped him fight back against the demons in his head.

She could have stayed.

But is it leaving, really, if the person left behind doesn't want you anymore?

She doesn't know. She'd just never really thought of it as _choosing_.

Circumstance had chosen for her, as it always did. When her father died. When Prim was reaped. When she was thrown back into the arena. When the Capitol stole Peeta, drained the love from his veins, and filled him back up with venom.

Nothing she'd ever done had felt like a choice. It was just…reactions. Learn to hunt, or starve. Volunteer, or watch Prim be killed. Live, or die.

Katniss shifts, letting her head tip back against the rough bark of the tree trunk. The sun is still bright, but slowly inching towards the horizon. The train from the Capitol will be leaving soon. There's not enough time for her to make it back to the fence, and then all the way through the Seam to the train station, in order to pick up her provisions for the next few weeks.

A pang of shame hits her as she thinks of the food, left unclaimed and likely shipped back to the Capitol. They'll probably throw it away. A total waste. She and Gale will be okay – with spring on the way, the game is already more plentiful – but her stomach turns nonetheless.

No one's starving anymore, at least not in Twelve. But there are so few of them here. Feeding the masses in Eleven, or Ten or Six…they had to be low on Coin's list of priorities, if such a list existed at all. She and Gale rarely turn on the television, but every time she catches a glimpse of the news it seems to be focused on the ongoing war trials in the Capitol, or memorials to those lost in the war. Always looking back, but never forward.

She can just barely admit that that's her problem, too.

* * *

><p>Katniss reaches Victor's Village just as the sun is setting, vibrant splashes of orange and pink bursting over the horizon. There's a light on in Peeta's house.<p>

She stops for a second when she sees it, frozen by the sudden twist in her gut. She imagines him watching the sky melt into darkness from one of his windows. He must still like sunsets. There was no reason for the Capitol to tear that away from him.

A shadow crosses behind the curtains, and her heart races, lurching up into her throat. She walks the rest of the way home quickly, forcing her eyes onto the ground in front of her.

The house is dark and quiet when she steps inside, save one overhead light on in the kitchen. She's surprised to see the familiar wooden crate of provisions, sitting in its usual spot on the kitchen island. So Gale did get the box, after all.

Katniss slips off her jacket and hangs it by the door, jumping slightly when she hears the sound of a _thwack_ coming from the backyard. She follows the noise and opens the back door slowly. Gale is there, turned away from the house, butchering the deer on top of the picnic table in the fading light.

She watches him from the doorway, her arms wrapped around her middle to fend off the evening chill. "Hey," she says softly.

He glances back at her for a moment. "Hey."

"You need help with that?"

In their past lives, they would have taken a kill like this to Rooba, the butcher, and had her deal with the mess in exchange for a few choice cuts of meat. But Rooba is gone now, and so far no one else back in the District has stepped up to take her place. There's no need, really, with the only fresh meat coming from Katniss' and Gale's hunts.

Gale shakes his head. "Nah."

She watches him for another beat, then walks slowly down the steps, stopping on the grass a few feet behind him. "Thanks for getting the box. I…forgot."

His shoulders stiffen.

"I didn't get it," he says. "Peeta did."

Katniss feels her stomach flip. "What?"

"He showed up with it at the front door."

"Why?"

"Because no one went to get it," he snaps. His hunting knife slices roughly through cartilage, hitting the wooden cutting block with a loud thud. "I was dragging a hundred-pound buck through town. Not sure about your excuse, though."

Katniss flushes. "I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have left you there. It was childish."

Gale says nothing, but the sound of his knife striking the wood is softer this time, and she takes it as his forgiveness.

"It's okay," he finally says after a long silence. "I'm mostly embarrassed by how out of shape I am. Not exactly 'Soldier Hawthorne' anymore."

Katniss can hear the smile in his voice, and she smiles a little, too. She steps closer, laying her palm against his back for a moment, gently between his shoulder blades. His muscles twitch beneath her fingers, and she steps away.

"Did he…" She stops, breathing in deeply. "Did he look okay?"

Gale is quiet for a moment. "Yeah, he looked okay." He doesn't elaborate.

"Did he say anything?"

"Not much," he says. "He wouldn't come inside."

She can't believe Gale would have invited him in the first place. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Katniss moves slowly back towards the door, dragging her feet through the damp grass. "Well, let me know if you need anything."

She doesn't exhale until she shuts the door behind her.

* * *

><p>The light stays on at Peeta's all through the night, its eerie, yellow glow spilling through her bedroom curtains.<p>

Katniss drifts in and out of restless sleep. When she shuts her eyes, she sees Peeta at his easel. She sees his paintings, each one its own twisted, gory nightmare: children missing limbs, bodies stuck full of arrows. Her own hands, covered in blood.

She drags herself out of bed just after dawn, pulling the same pants from yesterday up over her hips with weary hands. There's no need for a hunt today, not with pound after pound of deer meat stuffed into the freezer, but she knows herself well enough to know she needs a distraction today.

A few of the geese in Haymitch's little flock startle when she steps out onto the porch, but the village is otherwise silent and still in the hazy morning light. She's just a few feet down the way when she hears a door slam to her right, and she jerks her head around to see.

It's Peeta.

Katniss falls still, her entire chest hollowing out.

He keeps his chin tucked down as he thumps down his own front steps, something tucked beneath his elbow. He's only a few yards away when he finally looks up and sees her, too.

Peeta stops. He stares at her, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

"Katniss." The word sounds foreign on his lips. "Hi."

"Hi." Her own voice sounds odd and sharp, echoing between her ears.

Peeta takes a few, slow steps toward her, as though he's approaching a wild animal. "I was just bringing this over," he says, holding out the bundle in his arms. "Thought I'd leave it by the door, but."

He looks better than the last time she saw him. His eyes are clear instead of clouded, his hair neatly trimmed and parted to the side, the way they started styling it after they won the Games. She can make out the barest hint of stubble on his chin, something he'd never had before. His brown jacket looks tight across his shoulders, and it strikes her that the boy standing before her is seventeen years old – still growing.

Katniss accepts the bundle, taking care not to touch his fingers as she curls her own around the cloth. Squeezing gently, she can feel that it's bread. Peeta was bringing her bread. She wants to cry.

"You don't…" Katniss trails off, at a loss for words.

Peeta smiles slightly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Just being a good neighbor."

She presses the loaf against her stomach, wrapping her arms around herself to hold it there, and shifts her gaze away from him. Tries to collect herself. "Thank you."

"How are you?" he asks, his voice unnaturally bright. She looks back at him; his smile looks forced, almost a grimace.

"I'm okay," she says softly. "How are you?"

"Been worse," he says, and laughs a little. "Obviously."

And suddenly, it's too much. Katniss breathes in sharply. "Thank you. I have to – take this – I have to go."

"Katniss –"

"Thank you."

Peeta doesn't try to stop her.

* * *

><p>Gale looks surprised to find her in the kitchen when he shuffles out of his bedroom , still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Thought you'd be out," he says, pouring himself a glass of milk.<p>

Katniss shrugs. "We have so much venison in the freezer."

He takes a long sip of milk, then jerks his chin at the cloth bundle on the kitchen table in front of her, wiping his wrist over his mouth. "What's that?"

It's a simple answer to a simple question, and yet saying it feels like trying to pull a lead weight out of her stomach. "Bread."

Gale sets his glass down on the countertop. "Where'd you get that?"

She focuses her gaze on a knot in the wood of the tabletop, willing her features to stay neutral. "Where do you think?"

"Did you go over there? Because it's not safe," he adds immediately.

Katniss stares back at him. "It's perfectly safe."

"How do you know that?"

"I…I just do." She shakes her head slightly. "You said yourself, he looked fine."

"Yeah. He looked fine before he strangled you, too."

She feels it again, the sick, squeamish turn of her stomach that she feels every time they poke and prod one another into one of these fights. "I didn't even go to his house. I was going to the woods. We barely spoke." A lump settles in her throat, her eyes suddenly burning with tears. "He was bringing bread here. For _us_." She pushes her chair back from the table abruptly, stumbling to her feet.

Gale sighs deeply behind her. "Catnip –"

"I'm taking a bath," she says. "Have some goddamn toast."

* * *

><p>Beneath the rush of water from the bathtub tap, she finally lets herself cry.<p>

He had looked clean, and healthy, and sane. He had looked almost exactly like the old Peeta.

But he hadn't looked at _her_ the way the old Peeta did.

Katniss stays in the bath until her fingers prune, splashing the lukewarm water over her eyes in a halfhearted attempt to soothe the puffy, red skin. She stands on shaky legs, crossing her arms over her chest instinctively when there's a soft knock at the door.

"Don't come in," she says.

"I'm not." Gale's voice sounds close, and she pictures his forehead pressed against the other side of the door. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

She shivers a little as goosebumps run down her arms. "I'm fine."

"I didn't mean to upset you." He pauses. "I'm just trying to be realistic."

"Okay."

"I don't want you to get hurt."

She isn't sure what to say. She steps out of the tub and onto the small woven rug she keeps beside it, tugging her towel off the hook on the back of the door.

"Catnip?"

"I heard you." She wraps the towel around her torso and leans over the tub, wringing out her hair.

"Well I mean it, okay?" he says.

Katniss opens the door, and he stumbles against her, catching himself on the doorframe. She steps aside quickly, avoiding his eyes. "I know."

He has lunch waiting for her by the time she comes downstairs: venison seared on the stove, with potatoes from their provision box. It's his version of an apology, and eating it means she'll forgive him.

They eat in near silence, until Katniss says abruptly, "We should give him meat."

Gale turns his head to look at her. "Who?"

"Peeta," she says, before she can think better of it. But she doesn't miss the way his features harden before he turns back to his plate.

"Yeah, okay," he says finally. "Fair's fair, I guess."

It is fair, she thinks as she stands before the open freezer a half-hour later, her eyes raking over the dozens of steaks they'd packed in the night before. Peeta brought her box; Peeta baked her bread. She'll give him her deer meat. Even.

Katniss pulls a steak out and weighs it in her hands. Two pounds, give or take. Satisfied, she slips it into her game bag and steps towards the door to grab her boots. Gale's already there, slipping on his jacket.

"Where are you going?" she says without thinking.

Gale pauses, his jacket half-zipped. "I thought we were taking meat over to Peeta."

"Right," she says, flushing slightly. _We_. She'd said _we._

Gale walks quickly as they cross the gravel road, staying a step or two ahead of her, and raps his knuckles against the front door before she can do it herself. She hears footsteps from where the kitchen is, and after a moment Peeta opens the door.

Katniss is standing back a bit, half-hidden by Gale's larger body, but his eyes go straight to her anyway, before darting up to meet Gale's gaze. "Hi," Peeta says, sounding surprised.

"Hey," Gale says, and that's all. He's leaving it to her. Katniss swallows.

"I – we wanted you to have this. To say thank you, for the bread. And bringing the box over." She pulls the steak from her sack and thrusts it at him, moisture starting to bead on the plastic wrap as it hits the air.

Peeta accepts the offering, holding it awkwardly in his hands, like he has no idea what to do with it. "Um, thanks," he says. "It's okay, though. I just…like to bake," he says, his voice dropping off.

"It's a good cut," Gale says defensively. "Katniss just shot the deer yesterday."

"Then…I'm sure it's the best." Peeta smiles then, a tentative smile, locking eyes with Katniss. She stares back at him for a moment, looking away when she can feel Gale's gaze on her, too. "Would you…maybe want to share it with me? You could come for dinner," he says, looking between them uncertainly. "Both of you, I mean," he adds quickly.

Katniss glances up at Gale, but his face betrays nothing. This was her idea; it's her decision. "Sure," she says.

"I'll invite Haymitch," Peeta suggests.

Gale eyes the package in Peeta's hands. "You'll need more meat for that," he says.

"We can bring more," Katniss says. The only thing worse than dinner with the three of them and Haymitch would be dinner _without _Haymitch.

"Alright." Peeta nods. "I'll see you around six?"

Katniss nods, and he smiles again, stepping back into the house. Gale's hand comes to rest on the small of her back as they walk back down to the road. She never hears the door close, but when she looks back, he's gone.

* * *

><p><strong>As always:<strong>  
><strong>- Thank you so much for your amazing reviews.<strong>  
><strong>- I'm really sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up. :-P<strong>  
><strong>- I hope you enjoy it, and would love to hear your thoughts!<strong>


	5. gale ii

"You really want to do this?" Gale says.

Katniss looks up at him from her perch on the sofa, flicking her braid over her shoulder in annoyance. It's the third time he's asked her since they took the deer meat to Peeta that morning.

"He lives here now," she says flatly. "We can't just all avoid each other forever."

"We don't have to pretend like we're best buddies, either."

She stares at him for a long moment. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

Gale snorts. "Oh, I'm coming."

Katniss twists around in her seat, fully facing him. "What exactly is it that you think is going to happen?"

_He'll steal you. _The thought rises in him with such force it's all he can do not to say it out loud.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Gale says, folding his arms over his chest. "I don't know if he's…better. Neither do you. That's the problem."

Katniss purses her lips. "I can take care of myself," she says, turning back to the book in her lap.

"Now you don't want me to come?"

Katniss sighs heavily. "I didn't say that."

So they go, together, at six p.m. precisely; he's glad to find that Haymitch is there already, halfway through a bottle of white liquor. The older man takes one look at them and leans back in his chair. "_This _is going to be a fun night," he drawls. For the first time ever, Gale wholeheartedly agrees with Haymitch.

"It will be fun," Peeta says neutrally, pouring them each a glass of water. "I made pot pies with Katniss' venison, and cookies for dessert."

The little pies are good. Better than something similar that Gale's mother used to make out of tesserae grain in their rickety, old oven. He watches Katniss as her eyes flutter shut in pleasure with the first bite, and he can see from the corner of his eye that Peeta's watching, too.

Peeta turns his gaze to his plate and clears his throat, poking the top of his own pie with his fork so little curls of steam can escape through the crust. "I baked a lot, in the Capitol. Dr. Aurelius thought it would…help. I didn't know how to make these at first, but I remembered them. From the train." He pauses, his eyes flicking towards Katniss, then away again. "Those ones had chicken in them, I think."

"Real." Katniss' voice is so soft that Gale barely hears it, though he's seated right across from her. Peeta's mouth twitches up into an almost-smile, and Gale's fingers curl against his palm beneath the table.

Haymitch lets his fork drop to his plate, the clatter startlingly loud. "You got any more of these?" he says. "They're damn good."

"Of course," Peeta says. Gale can barely stop his eyes from rolling as Peeta folds his napkin before stepping away to the kitchen. A Capitol habit, most likely, though Gale had seen one or two kids from town do it over the years in the school cafeteria, too.

Table manners were about as useful as an electric toothbrush in the Seam. If there was food on the table, you ate it – end of story.

"Can I have some of that?" Gale says, nodding his head towards the bottle of liquor on the table. He can feel Katniss' eyes burning into him as Haymitch shrugs, pushing the bottle an inch towards him.

"Be my guest."

"You don't drink liquor," Katniss says, her voice low and accusing.

Gale drains the remaining water from his glass, then fills it halfway with the potent liquid. She's mostly right. But back before the war, he'd sometimes spend Friday nights with some friends in the meadow by the Seam, passing around a bottle from whoever had scrimped together enough coins for Ripper's bathtub gin that week. And once he started working in the mines, it wasn't uncommon for a flask of the stuff to make its way around an hour or two before closing time.

Gale was never fond of the taste. But that burn in your throat, in your gut…something about it was invigorating. Comforting, too, that even if your feet hurt and your back hurt and your throat was coated with ash, there was still something that could dull your senses and make you forget, if only for a moment.

"You don't know everything about me," he says, and throws back a long sip of the liquor, grimacing. He turns to Peeta, who's been silent through the entire exchange, chewing slowly. He pushes the bottle towards the blond boy. "You drinking?"

Peeta glances at Katniss, but seems to recognize it for the challenge that it is. "Why not," he says after a pause, and accepts the white liquor, tipping the lip of the bottle into his glass.

Katniss gapes at him. "I _know _you don't drink," she says.

Peeta shrugs.

"So you're all just going to get drunk," Katniss says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'm already there, Sweetheart," Haymitch says, punctuating the words with a loud belch.

"You're disgusting," she mutters.

They eat in silence after that. Gale finishes his drink and pours himself another glass; soon after, Peeta does the same.

"Well, Peeta," Haymitch says suddenly. "Is this the warm homecoming you were expecting?"

Peeta sets down his fork and is quiet for a moment, like he's actually thinking about it. "I wasn't expecting anything," he says.

"How could he? He didn't even tell anyone he was coming." Katniss doesn't even try to temper the bitterness in her words. Gale snorts. He's just tipsy enough to find the tension amusing, instead of unbearable; and not a moment too soon.

Peeta groans a little, dropping his face into his hands. "I don't think this is the right time to talk about this," he says, his voice muffled against his palms. His glass is near empty, and Gale can't help but feel pleased that the liquor is clearly hitting Peeta harder than it is Gale.

"I think it's a great time," Gale says.

"Gale, stop it," Katniss warns him.

"Lighten up, Catnip," he says, settling back in his chair. "We're all friends here."

This time it's Peeta who laughs. "You're not my friend. You hate me."

"Sure as hell not my friend," Haymitch grumbles.

"I don't hate you, Peeta," Gale says. He pauses. "I don't have any _reason_ to hate you."

Peeta's ears flush red, but before he can respond, Katniss is on her feet, pulling on her jacket. "I hate all of you right now," she says through gritted teeth.

Gale stands to stop her, but it's too quick, and the ground shifts beneath his feet for just a second as he catches his balance. Okay, maybe he's a little more than tipsy. It's been more than a year since his days of passing whiskey around in the mines, after all. "Catnip, wait."

The front door slams behind her, the sound hitting him in the gut like a sucker punch. He turns around slowly; Haymitch is taking it all in with barely concealed amusement, but Peeta is facedown at the table, his head buried in his arms.

Haymitch shakes his head. "You don't know how to quit when you're ahead."

"Shut up." Gale turns back to Peeta. "Look, Peeta –"

"Please go home." He doesn't lift his head. "It's okay. I shouldn't…I shouldn't have even come here. This was a mistake. I'll leave. I'll go."

Gale rolls his eyes. "Would you quit being such a fucking martyr? We're in your house. You don't have to go."

"It's okay," Peeta repeats, mumbling into his arms. "Just…go home, Gale."

Haymitch stands then, and the older man is surprisingly steady on his feet. "Do what he says for once," he tells Gale wearily, lowering his voice. "Go home to your girl."

Gale looks at Peeta for a moment longer, but the younger boy doesn't move. "I would if I had one," he mutters, and grabs his jacket off the back of his chair.

He expects to return to a dark house, Katniss closed up in her room. But she's waiting for him in the kitchen, a glass of water on the island before her.

"Drink this," she says stiffly, pushing it across the counter towards him.

Gale chugs it down dutifully. "Thanks," he says.

"You're an idiot," she says, and there's none of the playfulness in it that's been there before.

"I know," he admits.

"Is Haymitch still over there?"

Gale shrugs, watching the water droplets drip down the side of the empty glass. "Guess so. Why?"

She hesitates, and he looks up to meet her eyes. She looks away. "Peeta can't hold his drink," she says. "They'd give us wine on the Victory Tour and he'd get all…loopy."

A smirk slips onto his face before he can stop it, and Gale rubs his hand over his mouth to hide it. "Yeah, he was getting there."

Katniss shakes her head slightly. "I don't know why he'd agree to drink _white liquor_, of all things." She sounds irritated.

He slides the glass back across the counter, and she catches it just before it sails over the edge. "Maybe he forgot," he says. Maybe it was a memory they'd tampered with. Maybe Peeta didn't think he'd been drunk those nights. Maybe he thought he'd been drugged by Katniss, and maybe once he had enough in his system it would trigger an attack.

That's the problem. It's always a _maybe_, until it's too late and suddenly it just _is._

Her face hardens. "Maybe," she says, voice clipped. "I'm going to bed."

"Katniss, wait." Gale catches her by the hip as she tries to slip past him, her skin warm beneath his fingertips, even through the fabric of her pants. "I'm sorry."

She tilts her chin up to look at him. "Are you?"

The weight of it all hits him at once. He's ashamed, and exhausted, and scared, and just drunk enough that it seems like a good idea: he kisses her.

Her lips move back against his for just an instant, but then her palm is there against his chest, pushing him away. His heart thuds painfully beneath her touch. "What are you doing?" she asks quietly, her eyes sad.

"I don't know," he admits, his hand falling away from her waist as he slumps against the counter.

Katniss stares at him. "Go to bed," she says, dropping the empty glass in the sink.

* * *

><p>The sun is bright when Gale blinks back into consciousness sometime the next morning. It feels like there's a pickaxe lodged in his skull. <em>I probably deserve it<em>, he thinks, pressing his face against his pillow.

Katniss is already gone when he stumbles into the kitchen. He makes himself eggs and toast, and crawls back beneath his covers for a nap when they settle like lead in his stomach.

Gale drifts in and out of sleep throughout the morning, just barely aware of the sound of the front door opening around lunchtime, and Katniss moving quietly around the kitchen. He lays on his side and imagines her coming into his room to check on him, with a glass of juice and a few pills for his head, and the way her lips would twitch as she tried to suppress a smile.

But his door never opens, and eventually he hears the front door shut again, leaving him alone in the silence.

By the time he drags himself out of bed again, his stomach is growling, his head throbbing, his limbs achy and awkward. He grabs the telephone from its receiver on the wall as he shuffles down the hall, dialing as he falls back onto the sofa.

A little girl's bright, chirpy voice greets him. "This is the Hawthornes, Posy speaking."

Gale's lips curl up in an instant smile. "Hey, Rosy-Posy," he says, his voice still gravelly with sleep.

He had always loved all of his siblings, but Posy the most. Posy was _his_ – the way Prim was Katniss'. After the accident his mother had never shut down completely, the way Mrs. Everdeen had. But when her daughter was born a few weeks later, there were days – especially at the beginning – when she couldn't leave her bed, consumed by an overwhelming grief. Gale would skip school those days, making sure the baby was fed and changed.

The weight of that responsibility had never really left him. His mother was a good mother, to all of them, but it was Gale who told Posy her bedtime story each night, Gale who tweaked her nose teasingly in the morning at breakfast, Gale who took her on walks to the meadow and pointed out the squirrels and birds on the other side of the fence. All the things their father had done, and could never do for the daughter he never met.

No one loved Gale the way Posy did: innocently, freely, unconditionally.

"Gale!" He flinches but smiles even harder, tilting the phone away from his head as his sister shrieks into the receiver. "Hi hi hi!"

"Hi!" he repeats, laughing. "Hey, are you old enough to be answering the phone now?"

"I'm _seven_," she says, and he can picture her perfectly in his mind, her eyes rolling in exaggeration. It was a habit she'd only just started to develop right before he shipped out with the Star Squad, and it reminded him so much of Katniss that it almost hurt.

She launches into some disjointed story about one of her friends in Thirteen, and little by little Gale feels the tightness dissipate in his chest. He closes his eyes and listens to his sister ramble and he can almost pretend that he's lying on the lumpy, cheap sofa in their home in the Seam, and not the fine, plush furniture that fills this hollow, too-big house.

Finally Posy pauses to take a breath, and Gale hears his mother's voice in the background, lilting up into a question. "It's Gale," he hears Posy say, and then, "Mom wants to talk to you."

"Gale?"

"Hi, Mom."

"To what do I owe the honor?"

He smiles. "I just talked to you last week."

"I'm kidding. How are you? How's Katniss?"

Gale pauses. "I'm good," he says.

"You don't sound so good," she says.

"No, I'm just…a little under the weather today." He swallows. "I miss you guys."

His mother sighs, and he imagines her settling into a chair in the tiny living room in their compartment in Thirteen, tucking her gray-streaked hair back behind one ear. "We miss you too," she says.

She tells him about Rory, who's been learning to shoot with the old wooden bow Gale left behind now that outdoor recreation time is allowed, and Vick, who's been spending all his free time with a pretty girl whose family lives in a compartment just down the corridor.

"Have you thought any more about moving back soon?" he asks when she's done, trying to quell the little seed of hope swelling in his chest. "There's more people already, even since we talked last week." Nevermind that _people_ means Peeta Mellark. "There are some families here, I think."

Hazelle doesn't answer for a moment. "Honey," she finally says, her voice quiet. "We've talked about this."

His pulse picks up, like maybe if his heart beats fast enough it can outrun the inevitable disappointment. "Yeah, but you aren't here. You haven't even seen it," he argues, pushing himself up on his arms to sit upright. "It's getting better."

"It's not a stable environment for kids, Gale."

"It's never going to be if the people who belong here are too chicken to come back." Gale bites down on his tongue immediately after saying it, cursing silently.

"Don't you dare speak to me like that, Gale Hawthorne." His mother's voice is sharp and brittle through the phone line. "Try raising four kids on your own, and then talk to me about who's chicken."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I am, I'm sorry. I just really miss you guys. I miss…having a family."

There's a pause, and a note of hesitation in Hazelle's voice when she speaks again. "Is everything alright with Katniss? You haven't said much about her lately."

"It has nothing to do with Katniss," he lies. "Look, I have to go."

"Gale."

"I'll call you soon, okay? Say hi to Rory and Vick. I love you."

Gale clicks the _off _button and tosses the phone onto the coffee table.

* * *

><p><strong>Hello hello! Thank you for sticking with me, despite the time it took to get this chapter up. I hope to be updating more frequently, at least for the next few chapters. :) As always, thank you so much for the thoughtful comments, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, especially as it's very Gale-heavy.<strong>


	6. peeta ii

_Dizzy._ Peeta squeezes his eyes shut. His face feels hot, so hot.

The wood of the dining table feels pleasantly cool beneath his flushed cheek, though, and he pulls his arms tighter around his head. Wishes he could fall asleep. Disappear.

He hears the scrape of chair legs across the floor, and then a hand is on his shoulder, warm and firm. Haymitch's hand. "C'mon, kid," he says, shaking Peeta a little. "Let's get you to bed."

"No," Peeta mumbles, twisting away from his touch. "No, I have to…I have to go."

Haymitch sighs. "Why don't you sleep on it first. Tomorrow you can go any damned place you like."

Somehow Haymitch manages to coax him up the stairs and into his bedroom, one arm around his back for support. Peeta stumbles against the edge of the bed, and tips forward onto the mattress fully dressed, his prosthetic foot dangling off the edge. He rubs his face against the pillowcase. It's better than the table was, cool and silky against his skin.

Behind him he's dimly aware of Haymitch leaving, Haymitch pausing in the doorway, Haymitch watching him. Haymitch pitying him – and he's not too drunk, could _never _be too drunk, to recognize the irony.

Peeta says, "She hates me."

Haymitch clears his throat. "What?"

"Katniss." Her name sounds muffled against the pillow, and he shifts his head to the side, freeing his mouth. "She hates me," Peeta tells him.

Another sigh. "Peeta..." Haymitch shakes his head. "I don't want to get into it. Just get some sleep, for chrissake."

And Peeta closes his eyes, welcoming the dark.

* * *

><p>It's daylight when he wakes. Peeta groans, pressing his hands over his eyes until the stinging sensation dissipates. It's disorienting, after a life spent rising with the dawn.<p>

Downstairs, the kitchen is a mess. Dishes sit piled in the sink, unwashed and crusted over with the remains of last night's dinner. The cookies he'd made remain untouched, still arranged carefully on a floral-print plate he'd found in one of the cupboards. He sits at the table and stares at it all, the dread pooling in his stomach as his brain begins to piece together the night before.

He'd known it was a terrible idea from the moment it had left his mouth – from the moment Katniss and Gale had stepped off his front porch and the older boy's hand had moved so easily to the small of her back. Once they were gone, he'd slipped on his shoes and run to Haymitch's house in a near panic, bribing him to come for supper with the promise of free bread for life.

It had been a mistake – not just the dinner, but all of it. Coming back to Twelve, believing there was anything here for him at all. Thinking he could sit beside her and _not _be overwhelmed by the storm churning through his head and his heart and his gut.

He hadn't expected that: how deep, how sharpthe longing would be. When she'd walked through his door last night, into his home, he'd felt like a compass gone awry, spinning off his axis. Unsure where he wanted to land – where he _could _land. Katniss's presence still pulled at him like a magnet; that hadn't changed.

But he had. Once, the love he'd felt had been a steady, sturdy thing. A constant. Something he could anchor himself in.

Now he doesn't even know what to call it. Not love. A connection, maybe – but a tenuous one, frayed and knotted. The way he feels for her isn't a comfort anymore. He doesn't understand it, can't find the roots, though he still feels them sometimes, digging and twisting somewhere deep within him.

* * *

><p>He's surprised to find Haymitch awake, watching television from his couch, when he lets himself inside the other victor's house at lunchtime.<p>

"I knocked," Peeta says. Haymitch doesn't answer, his eyes trained on the screen. President Coin sits in an armchair, giving an interview to a man with close-cropped hair. She looks exactly like she did the last time he saw her in person, at Snow's execution. Like the only person who made it through the war unchanged. A dull headache throbs in the back of Peeta's skull, and he turns away.

"What are you watching that for?" he asks, raising his voice over the drone of the newscast. "I thought you hated politics."

There's a long pause before Haymitch responds, "I do." There's a soft beep as he shuts off the tv. "What do you want?"

Peeta smiles a little. Haymitch's suspicion is familiar, if nothing else. "Some company," he says, ignoring Haymitch's snort as he pushes aside dirty plates and old newspapers to make room on the kitchen counter for the bread he's brought with him. "Some help eating this bread."

"That I can do," Haymitch says, heaving himself into a chair at the kitchen table.

There isn't much in the way of edible food in the house, but Peeta digs up some butter, cheese and a tomato that isn't _entirely _rotted from the fridge, and fries two sandwiches in a skillet on the stove. The sandwiches taste better than the ones his mother used to make on weekends, using the stale, hard nubbins of whatever loaves were left by Sunday close.

They eat quietly, and for a moment Peeta pretends that this is just one of the afternoons they'd spent together more than a year ago, before the quell. Two victors, having lunch, with the mutual understanding that neither had anything to say that the other wanted to hear. They had eaten together like this frequently after Peeta had moved into Victor's Village, alone; after he'd had his heart broken, but before he'd realized that there were even worse things waiting for him.

But he can't pretend forever. Peeta finishes his sandwich, and says, "Does the train come every Wednesday?"

"S'far as I know," Haymitch says, crumbs dropping from his open mouth. "Why?"

Peeta taps his fingers on the tabletop. He hadn't expected any questions from Haymitch, whose barely-there curiosity always seemed to begin and end with whatever Peeta was feeding him at the moment. "Thought maybe I'd sign up for those provision boxes."

"No," Haymitch says, startlingly firm. "You thought maybe you'd hitch a ride back out of town." He takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing roughly. "Don't lie to me, kid. I've seen enough of it to know."

Peeta's cheeks burn, and he stands, carrying his empty plate swiftly to the sink. He leaves his back to Haymitch. "So?"

"_So?"_ Haymitch says, mimicking his tone.

Unbidden, Peeta's fingers curl into fists, but before the horror can grip him they splay back out, stiff and trembling. He flips on the tap to wash his hands, desperate for something to occupy them. _It's Haymitch. Haymitch. Just Haymitch. _"If I do…I'm only doing what's best," he says, scrubbing hard at his skin.

Haymitch doesn't respond. But Peeta keeps running the water over his hands, wincing as it grows hotter. He flexes his fingers one at a time. Maybe he can burn whatever sickness is left right out of them.

"Peeta, did someone…send you here?"

Peeta shuts off the tap and, no towels in sight, wipes his hands on the bottom of his shirt. He turns to look back at Haymitch. The older man looks worse in the daylight than he did in the soft glow of a lamp last night, his eyes bloodshot and wary.

He isn't sure how to answer. "Here? To your house?"

"To Twelve."

"No, I…" He racks his memory. His last weeks in the Capitol all bleed into one another, a steady stream of therapy sessions and baking hours and crisp white bed sheets. He was there, and now he's not, but there was no real catalyst in between; just the sense that he couldn't be _there_ anymore. "They told me I could go, and I did."

Then it clicks. Peeta feels suddenly queasy, acid rising in his throat. "You think Coin sent me." He swallows, his mouth dry. "To kill Katniss."

Haymitch looks at him, his face impassive, and Peeta looks back. "No," he finally says. "I don't." He flicks a piece of crust across his plate. "But I had to ask."

Peeta grips the counter behind him, feeling lightheaded. "Is that what Katniss thinks?"

Haymitch's mouth curls up in a smirk. "Katniss doesn't think," he says, and it's not really an answer, but it's not the worst thing he could have said.

"I don't feel that way anymore," Peeta insists. "Violent, I mean. I get angry sometimes, still, but…" His voice trails off. "I don't want to hurt her."

Their eyes meet then, and Haymitch nods, just once. "I believe you."

Hearing it feels better, more significant, than Peeta expected. "Thanks," he whispers, turning his head so Haymitch won't see how quickly he has to blink back tears.

* * *

><p>Haymitch makes it clear that his plans for the rest of the day center on a long, uninterrupted nap, and Peeta finds himself adrift in an afternoon bereft of possibility, no one to see and nowhere to go.<p>

So he walks.

It's hard to orient himself. It's about a mile from the Village to the town square, and though there was never much to see along the way, the landscape stretches out impossibly barren before him now. A sycamore tree had marked the rough midpoint of the path, its mottled bark distinct from the ones around it, but they're all identical now, black and leafless. At one point he just stops, looks back and looks ahead, and sees…nothing.

Peeta has to steel himself once the Justice Building comes into view. It's the only one left (partially) standing. There are a handful of people in the square, and as he draws closer his pulse picks up rapidly, though he can't tell if he recognizes any of them yet.

Eyes turn to watch as he walks past a heap of cracked cement and rubble, all that remains of the grocery store that had once marked the edge of town. An old woman with gray eyes and a brown kerchief tied around her head coughs, the sound raw and wet in the silence. Peeta recognizes her vaguely, as someone who Katniss had traded with before the penalty rose from _stern warning _to _shot in the back of the head_.

Still they watch, quiet, as he hugs the edge of the square, picking his way around the rocks that have strayed into the path. He's used to people staring, but in the past it was always clear what they were looking for. He doesn't know what these people want.

He stops where the bakery was.

A twisted, blackened lump of metal is all that sets it apart from its neighbors. It's the oven. _Was _the oven. The rest is broken glass and ashes.

Peeta lets his eyes run over the scene, constructing walls and windows in his mind; green paint flaking on the wooden panels, wet leaves gathering on the white plastic overhang above the door. The entry to the apartment upstairs was on the left, and the alley where his family kept their pigs was on the right, but he can't remember whether there were two windows or three on the second story.

He braces, waiting for it to sink in, for the overwhelming sorrow to claw its way up and drag him down. But all he feels is empty.

Footsteps crunch loudly behind him. A man clears his throat. "They wouldn't have suffered. Anyone who was here – the bombs fell right here. It would have been instant."

Peeta turns to look at him. He's thirty years old, give or take a few, with dark hair and dark eyes. Seam. Peeta doesn't know him, but everyone knows Peeta. His forehead is creased in a frown, black dust gathering in the wrinkles.

"Thanks," Peeta says, though he isn't sure if he means it.

The man shrugs with one shoulder, and turns away. It's only then that Peeta notices his left arm ends in a stump.

* * *

><p>The sun is setting by the time he walks through the Village gates. Peeta takes his time, favoring his good leg. It aches in a satisfying way, from the most use it's had in months.<p>

He thinks about bringing dinner over to Haymitch as he passes the older man's house, but the windows are all dark and curtained shut. Haymitch is a good friend, a real friend, but not an eager one, and Haymitch won't fill the hole that's already starting to gape open within him.

Peeta knows that it was worth it. That the pain and death and sacrifice meant something. He knows it the way he knows that he is fortunate to have a home with four walls, at least one leg that works, and a mind that isn't completely, irretrievably wrecked after all. Because the districts are free now, if fractured; because children are just children now, not pawns, not targets.

But it's so hard to feel it, as he stares down another night alone, a lifetime drifting through a country made of bones and ash.

* * *

><p>He's about to win his third round of solitaire when there's a knock at the door.<p>

It's Katniss, her hair loose and falling into her eyes, her father's battered leather jacket draped over her shoulders. It always amused him, the way the jacket swallowed her up, the way she didn't care.

"Hi," he says, releasing a breath.

"Hi," she says. She fidgets, shoving her hands into her pockets. "I just…wanted to make sure you were okay."

Peeta glances down at himself, slightly embarrassed by his striped pajamas and bare feet. It's barely past 8 pm. "I'm fine."

Katniss nods, averting her eyes to look past him into the house. "I know you don't drink a lot," she says, more to herself than to him. "I mean, you didn't. I don't know."

"No, you're right." Peeta presses his lips together, nervous. "I'm sorry about that, by the way."

Katniss shrugs. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"I deserved it."

She makes a soft noise in her throat, half-agreeing. "It wasn't all your fault."

He knows she means Gale. The name hangs between them like a ghost, unspoken.

Katniss tugs at her hair. "Thank you for dinner. The food you made was really good."

"We didn't make it to dessert," he says lightly. "I still have some cookies."

He can see her weighing the options, working through the scene in her head, and he struggles not to roll his eyes. They're cookies, not a marriage proposal. But this is Katniss: every decision is a critical one, every outcome a potential disaster.

"Okay," she says.

His shoulders tense abruptly; he didn't realize it until now, but he didn't actually think she'd say yes. And he's not sure he wanted her to. The image of the burnt out bakery crashes into his mind, the lump of the oven looming bigger and darker in his imagination.

Peeta forces a smile, steps aside, and lets her in.

* * *

><p><strong>It's a Thanksgiving miracle!<strong>

**Seriously, though - I apologize that I left this story stagnant for so long, and thank you to everyone who bugged me about it and checked up to make sure I didn't die or lose a limb or something. There wasn't much forward momentum coming out of the last chapter, so it was tough to work out exactly where I needed to go with this one in a way that felt unforced, but I think I've got it figured out alright.**

**Thank you so much for reading - please let me know what you think!**


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